Reliquary Missing Scenes
by nacimynom
Summary: This two-chapter exercise is my attempt at writing a different POV for the action packed second to last chapter of Martha Wells' Reliquary SGA novel. I wanted to see John's mighty struggle from McKay and Teyla's POVs.
1. Chapter 1

**Warnings:** Spoilers for the excellent SGA novel _Reliquary _ by Martha Wells (published by Fandemonium Books)

**Disclaimer:** SGA characters, TV episodes, and SGA novels are not mine. This story was written for fun, not profit.

**Note: **This two-chapter first SGA fanfiction effort is my attempt at writing different points of view for the action packed second to last chapter of this SGA novel. I wanted to see John's mighty struggle from McKay and Teyla's points of view. It probably won't make much sense unless you read the book. The text in _italics_ is quoted from Wells' book. Pardon my medical mumbo-jumbo.

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><p><strong>Chapter 1<strong>

Zalenka had patched up the com unit so that they could hear the headset conversations from John, Bates and the others who were entering the jumper bay. Yells crackled through the radio signals as bursts of MP-90 gun fire rattled first intensely then sporadically, needing no amplifier to be heard through the glass windows and doors of the control room.

"_Major, did you get in?" Bates said._

"_Negative, stay back. He's in here with it." _John ordered.

McKay realized that John must have made it inside Jumper 5.

"_Wow. You're a little different." _John said a few minutes later.

Dorane's response was audible but faint._ "The transformation occurs whenever I leave my athenaeum for more than a few hours. It's inhibited by the field I use to activate my version of the Ancient gene. It prevents me from staying in this city, from traveling to any other world. I told you, all my people were affected by our biological weapons."_

"_Yeah, you told me. But I wasn't listening to that part," _John lost his ironic tone when he added._ "What's in the box?"_

"_It's a very small explosive, only meant to release a substance in the air."_

McKay was thinking about how pedantic Dorane sounded when he realized that the box contained the biologic weapon that Teyla had warned them about.

"McKay, did you see that?" Peter Grodin ducked his head back from the balcony. "The lights from one of the other jumpers just flashed on. Who's activating it?"

"What? I don't…," following where Grodin was pointing, Rodney noticed the lights of some of the other jumpers flickering. One of them even rose up slightly on its pad before settling back down. "Oh, it must be Sheppard. That deadly retrovirus he got infected with is making him more and more sensitive to all the ATA technology. Shut up now, I am trying to listen."

"_That's disappointing, because I really didn't want you to have the satisfaction of killing me. But you already did, didn't you? Did you think I didn't know that?" _John's voice sounded like ice.

"_I suspected it. I didn't expect you to be able to function this well in spite of it." _Dorane's disdain marked every word. _"But it means nothing. You claim Lantian heritage, but even with the gene, you're all just cattle for the Wraith."_

"_Thanks, but we already knew that." _John said evenly._ "Why don't you just head for the Stargate? You can probably make it."_

"_I fear I have lingered here too long already. Once my condition is triggered by leaving the athenaeum, it advances swiftly. I am dying, even as you are." _Dorane said nonchalantly.

"_You know, I really wish the ancients had done a better job of getting rid of you." _John said in a long breath. Then he added,_ "Bates, fall back to the corridor and close the blast door."_

"_That won't do any good. The Lantians didn't want to get rid of me. They wanted to punish me."_

"_Oh yeah, that was so unreasonable of them." _John seemed to have noticed something_. "You can't open the container."_

"_Don't excite yourself, it's on a timed release." _Dorane said._ "I really did think of every possibility, including the one that I might be incapable of opening it when the time came." _

John reply came a few moments later,_ "And I'm guessing I won't just be able to seal the jumper's hatch."_

"_It will react rapidly with oxygen, becoming corrosive. The ship's shielding won't hold it in for long." _

"We are so totally screwed," realizing that he had spoken aloud, McKay glanced around the room to see if anyone had heard him. Not that it really mattered, that insane, homicidal maniac was really going to kill them all. What a waste of a brilliant mind to spend thousands of years plotting and scheming against those long gone Ancestors.

Running through all the scenarios he could think of, McKay concluded that there was really nothing that he and the others in the control room could do to stop him. He fervently hoped that John could pull off one of his last minute, seat of the pants heroic solutions. He had seen the iron-willed determination in John's eyes as he, Bates and the three active marines walked off armed to the teeth. But he had also seen the pain and physical strain caused by their two-day ordeal.

All they heard next was a quick burst of gun fire, heavy breathing and grunts followed by a thud which sounded like bodies hitting a hard surface. Then noises and groans of pain sounded more distant.

"Rodney, John must have lost his headset," McKay was startled by Elizabeth Weir's voice. "Can you see what's going on?' Thinking that a wall of glass would offer no protection from Dorane's biological weapon, McKay stepped into the balcony and looked up at the jumper bay above them.

"I don't see any… Wait, I think Sheppard and Dorane just rolled off the jumper. The major is lucky, he landed on top. Oh, that's what he meant that Dorane has changed. He looks bigger and he's got claws longer that Sheppard's. They are at each other's throats. The jumper is hovering above the Gateroom, with the ramp is still open. Crap, Dorane just threw off Sheppard and is making a leap for the jumper ramp…"

Suddenly speechless, McKay tracked Dorane's flight off the upper balcony, just missing the ramp that suddenly snapped closed and falling to the deck below. The others from the control room joined him as they all stared as Jumper 5 lowered into position—a quickly widening pool of blood and bits of white and brown matter spreading below. Well, that was an appropriate ending for Dorane, McKay thought, squashed like a bug by a jumper's magnetic field. Poetic justice of a sort.

"_Dr. McKay, Major Sheppard says that you should dial the gate for a planet with no atmosphere," _Bates said through the com.

McKay tore his eyes away from the scene below. He rushed back to the dialing console to quickly identified a suitable address from the database and punch the sequence of symbols. Silently praying for the gate to hurry up, his eyes drifted to the balcony above. He could see John and Sergeant Bates leaning over the jumper bay balcony. Blood from wounds on their shoulders and arms was clearly visible, a deep crimson standing out from the black background of their uniforms and their sickly pale skin. The two men seemed barely able to stand, hands tight on to the railing for support.

The clicks of the last chevron locking into place sounded incredibly loud. Startled, Rodney suddenly remembered John's recent dramatic reaction to the transporter. The metallic ripple of the event horizon swooshed into the jumper bay before settling within the gate ring. As Jumper Five smoothly eased through the gate, Rodney saw John crumble to the ground, hands clutching his head. The instant the jumper swept through, Rodney shut down the gate.

"The area is secure now." The rest of Bates' call through the com system had an uncharacteristic worried tinge. "Medical emergency in the jumper bay. It's Major Sheppard. We need a crash team now."

"Oh no," Rodney said heading for the stairwell. He took the steps two at a time despite how utterly drained of energy he felt. With a sinking feeling, he was remembering the times today he had told John that he was going to die. Was it two or three? He had said it because he was very concerned and hadn't meant to sound like he was rubbing it in his face. He was pretty sure that John had understood that when he had told him to shut up. But as he realized that John seemed very likely to be dying right now, he felt petty.

Feeling lightheaded from the exertion, Rodney entered the jumper bay and walked towards the two injured men. Dr. Biro was tending to sergeant Bates who, while clearly dazed, seemed more interested in following what was happening to the Major. Dr. Carson Beckett and two medics, crouched on the ground next to John who was lying unmoving on his back. One of the medics had just finished cutting off the Major's tac vest and t-shirt, revealing a mass of purple bruises covering his torso. Blood flowed freely from deep gashes running down from both shoulders, crisscrossed by shallower scratches, including some around his neck. He looked as if he had been mauled by a giant cat, which, Rodney thought, was not that far off the mark. Except cats, even enormous ones, don't inject people with metamorphogenic killer retroviruses.

Unsure about what to do, he kneeled next to John's head, trying to stay out of the way of the medical team. Looking at the Major, Rodney felt uncharacteristically helpless, his mind generating no brilliant idea to save him from the ticking time bomb that Devane's gene therapy had triggered in his body.

A low moan signaled that the Major had started to regain consciousness. His body tensed and he began to raise his arms. The medic to his right held down his arm.

"Major Sheppard, can you hear me?" Beckett said in his gentle Scottish twang while preparing a syringe. "Hold still son, I am going to give you something for the pain."

Arm movements frozen, John opened his eyes, his pupils immediately constricting to a pinpoint and disappearing in the light green iris. Letting out a low moan, he clamped his eyes shut. He grasped Rodney's arm pulling him closer. Rodney could feel John's entire body shivering. He tried to speak, but instead he had to fight to breathe. His nose had started to bleed.

Rodney understood what John wanted to ask him, _"It's gone, it went through the gate."_ At that, John lost consciousness, his grip on Rodney's arm gone. The fear gripping his stomach made Rodney so angry that he looked at Beckett and shouted, _"My God, Carson, will you get off your fat ass and do something!"_

Beckett barely glanced up to say, "That's not helping, Rodney."

He and the medics worked quickly, covering John's mouth and nose with an oxygen mask, placing monitors on the chest and, with difficulty, inserting IVs in both arms. They communicated with each other in staccato medical phrases, sounding off diminishing vital signs and increasing drug dosages.

Standing up to move further out of the way, Rodney tore his eyes off the scene. Nearby, he saw Teyla, whispering something to Elizabeth. Their faces looked pale and drawn. Further down the large hall, medics were wheeling a bright orange gurney with Sergeant Bates. Rodney had only a moment to register that they were entering the transporter when the sound of a brief agonized yell made him look back at the Major. One of the medics tried to hold John down as convulsions wracked through him.

"Pulse ox is 85% and dropping," the other medic read off the small digital instrument placed on Sheppard's left index finger. She fixed the mask placement and adjusted oxygen levels. "He is going into shock."

"We have to sedate and intubate him," said Beckett rattling off drug dosages to the medics.

Rodney turned back toward Elizabeth, "We should shut down the transporters and all non-essential ATA technology in the tower. John's sensitivity to it has increased exponentially. He was getting excruciating headaches from it before and now, it's killing him."

"That's something we can do," said Elizabeth before relaying the order through her headset. When she was finished, she asked "Rodney, do you have any idea what kind of sensitivity range he has?"

"A couple of hours ago, he managed to track down Teyla through the bowels of Atlantis. He just commanded a jumper to lift off and go through a Gate. Now, I have no idea."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

It took another forty-five minutes to stabilize John to the point that Beckett deemed that it was medically safe to move him. Taking the Major to the medical suites via the transporters was totally out of the question. But so was wheeling his gurney and life support equipment through the hallways and hand carrying it down several levels.

With their stockpiles of ZPMs to feed the transporters, the Ancients must have felt that it was more important to have the medical facilities protected within the core of Atlantis, rather than near the jumper bay where the injured might be brought in from the outside. Clearly, the design had not incorporated contingencies for one of their many-times-removed descendant being critically injured and unable to physically handle the activation of ATA equipment. Another example, of a growing list showing that even with their almost infinite intelligence and power, the Ancients could not anticipate solutions to everything.

It turned out to also be a good idea to keep the Major away from all the ATA equipment in the medical suites being used by Beckett's colleagues to treat Bates and the others injured or otherwise incapacitated during the ordeal of the past few days. Weir identified a suitable room on the outermost perimeter one level down from the jumper bay. The necessary Earth-made medical equipment, supplies, and even furniture were brought up the several flights of stairs by several marines who had by then recovered from Dorane's mind control drug. The soldiers' visible relief at having an opportunity to work off their embarrassment at having succumbed to it turned grim when they saw the Major's condition.

John had been moved to a proper adjustable sickbay bed, surrounded on one side by a bank of monitoring equipment and on the other side by the respirator and dialysis instruments. Intravenous lines from both arms and one hand snaked out to plasma and saline-filled bags hanging from two poles. Paired lines on his right wrist traced back to the dialyzer. Thankfully, the origins of other tubes were hidden by a blanket that covered his lower body and most of the torso. His shoulders, right arm and both wrists were heavily bandaged. With a sleeping mask over the eyes and a taped-down ventilator tube jutting out of his mouth, John's unruly black hair remained the only recognizable feature, despite being interspersed by insectoid white and silver spines.

Standing near an open window, Teyla could not tear her eyes away from John to pay attention to the hushed conversation. Even though she had seen him badly injured before, she had never seen him so close to death. No matter that intellectually what Elizabeth said made perfect sense, in her heart she knew that she had brought him there. This was her fault, she thought. Her brain kept on replaying what had happened since Dorane's mind control drug had forced her to act against her field commander and friend.

She remembered how detachedly horrified she felt when she first heard the voice in her mind commanding her to knock down John as he covered Dorane with the muzzle of his MP-90. As she fought the compulsion, her head throbbed and she broke into a cold sweat.

She had noticed John glance at her with concern, but no matter how hard she struggled to gain her voice, she could not utter a single word of warning. At least she had not immediately obeyed, forcing Dorane to switch tactics. He paralyzed her. So, instead of dutifully protecting John's back, she stood still and quiet as a statue while a Koan bashed him in the back of the head with a heavy metal pipe.

Taken totally by surprise, John had groaned in pain and crumpled face first onto the ground. Horrified, she crouched down with the intent to check his pulse and breathing. Instead, Dorane compelled her to strip him of his weapons, tactical vest and ammunition loaded-belt. She watched her own hands briskly pat him down—they seemed to belong to someone else. Dorane's control on her mind had been so tight that she could not even feign ignorance of the various knives John had strapped away in hidden spots under his uniform.

Like a mindless robot from one of those movies John had shown her, she followed the Koan carrying John down a set of stairs. They entered a large bare chamber with a high rounded ceiling and some sort of spectator gallery. Jarred to consciousness when unceremoniously dumped on the large stone slab in the middle of the room, John rolled onto his back and threw a punch at the Koan who tried to wrestled him down. That Koan staggered back and another one jumped on John momentarily pinning him down. John had a hand on his throat while the Koan dug into his shoulders with his claws.

Teyla desperately wanted to help him. She managed to take a step away from the door, when her brief success at regaining control of her muscles got snuffed out by Dorane's compulsion to remain still. The first Koan jumped into the fray and his momentum shoved John's head backwards against the stone slab. John stopped struggling and the Koan quickly manacled his hands and feet to the slab.

She felt her freewill completely banished to a little corner of her brain as Dorane made her approach the stone slab. She would never forget how horrified she had felt seeing John splayed with arms stretched above his head, shackled to a stone like a sacrificial victim of one of those ancient civilizations from John's home planet. Dorane had made her the priestess of his own evil rite.

Teyla remembered John's dazed look when he saw her lean over him. Even when they practiced Athosian stick combat, she rarely got this physically close to his face. His hazel-green eyes had looked unusually washed out as he blinked several times to focus on her. He was bleeding from deep gouges on his shoulders and shallower scratches on his arms. She should have helped him, but she didn't. She couldn't. All she managed to do was explain Dorane's convoluted plans. After his initial confusion, John had encouraged her to fight off Dorane's command to inject him with the Koan retrovirus.

He had said, _"Teyla, you're strong, you're the strongest person I know, you can fight it."_

Despite that and his later pleas, she had jammed the injection into his arm and left him there, to be attacked by the Koan or just left to die in madness.

In the next several hours, the self-contained corner of her mind shrunk so much that she barely responded to her name as she and the surviving marines and scientists took the jumper back to Atlantis and helped Dorane infiltrate the base. She hadn't even recognized John when he tackled her in the walkway. Luckily, he managed to disarm her and tear away from her grasp the drug controller device Dorane had entrusted her to hide. When Rodney smashed the device, her self-control came back in a rush of relief before she passed out.

She regained consciousness with Rodney and John hovering over her. As John gently moved the hair that had swept over her eyes, she felt relief that he was still alive. In the dimness of the emergency lights, the silvery spines made him look a little odd, but he certainly didn't act mad like Dorane had said he would.

She had wanted to talk to him then, to apologize for having failed to back him up, but she barely had the strength to move her legs while John and Rodney supported her on either side. She felt nauseous and drained of energy. As they walked down the corridors, her head throbbed with memories surfacing in her head of what had happened, of the traitorous deeds she and the others had done under Dorane's influence. At least when the Atlantis had come back to full power, she remembered that Dorane had brought some sort of backup weapon.

And then when the transporter started, John collapsed as if some mysterious force had hit him in the head again. She had watched in confused horror when he stumbled out of the transporter doors, crumbling to the ground while squeezing his head in a silent scream.

"What is happening to him Rodney?" she had whispered.

Rodney had looked furious when he replied, _"It's killing him, what the hell do you think?"_

That's when she really noticed how ill John looked. His face looked drained of life from pain and fatigue. How could someone look so much thinner in just a couple of days? What had she done?

Partly convinced that all this second-guessing was not helping John, Teyla schooled herself to take deep calming breaths of fresh sea air and turn to face Dr. Weir, Dr. Beckett, and Dr. McKay.

"The major's external injuries and blood loss are not life-threatening. What is potentially catastrophic is this super-sensitivity to the ATA which is over stimulating his central and peripheral nervous system, and has sent him into deep shock." Beckett explained.

"For God's sake," noticing Teyla's puzzled look, Rodney cut in. "What Carson is saying is that the ATA screaming in John's head is causing so much pain that his major organs are shutting down."

Beckett glanced at Teyla apologetically, "Yes, sorry lass. To relieve the pain and protect his brain, I had to put him in a drug-induced coma. But while he can't consciously feel anything, his body is still reacting to the ATA and his vital functions continue to spiral down. I don't want to admit this, but it won't be long when all the drugs and life support I can throw at him won't help."

"How long?" Elizabeth asked.

"Without being able to use the ATA for another full-body scans to compare with the one I took a few hours ago, I can't be certain." Beckett said. "The one thing we have going for him is all the Earth-made life support equipment that's ATA free. That's something the Ancients and Dorane didn't have."

"Dorane boasted that the Thesians he had previously infected with this retrovirus strain only lived one to two days at most." Rodney said.

"I.." Teyla swallowed hard and made herself continue. "I injected him nearly a day and a half ago."

"Teyla, no one is blaming you. The one to blame is dead," said Elizabeth. "It really is not your fault."

"That's true, and the gruesomeness of Dorane's death should be very satisfying but really isn't," Rodney's voice rose as he added, "But for God's sake, we can't let that mutant bastard get his ill aimed revenge on Sheppard because of actions allegedly committed by an obscure four-hundred generations-removed ancestor! There has to be something we can do."

"Rodney, to find a cure we need to fully characterize the retrovirus which means first we have to isolate and sequence it." Beckett sighed. "The lab researchers are analyzing the Major's blood and tissue samples to hunt down the retrovirus. Even with everybody working night and day, it's going to take a couple of days to complete the tests and generating a cure is going to take at least as long. Sheppard doesn't have that much time."

"Zelenka is pouring through his download of the memory core to find out everything that might possibly be useful about these retroviral drugs." Elizabeth added.

"Wait, I have a download of Dorane's database. The data you need must be in it," said Rodney snapping his fingers. "I can't believe that I almost forgot about this. I must be hypoglycemic. The problem is that I had to hide it in the MALP before Sheppard and I went through the gate. They would have found it when they searched us."

Elizabeth glanced at the still body on the sickbay bed before turning back to Beckett. "Is he far enough away from the Stargate to survive when we dial it?"

"I don't know for sure, but there really is no other choice." Beckett answered. "Sheppard can't be safely moved and we have to do this as soon as possible before his condition deteriorates even further."

It didn't take long to formulate a plan. The task involved a simple retrieval done as quickly as possible to minimize the time the Stargate would remain open. The two fittest and healthiest marines were selected to retrieve the database. One to open the MALP compartment and the other to provide cover for any remaining Koan. A fully equipped medical crash team convened around the Major.

While Elizabeth and Rodney went back to the control room to supervise the mission, Teyla hanged back. She thought it was important to have someone from John's team there, in case the worst happened.

Walking out of the room, Elizabeth squeezed her arm, "Please tell me what is going on."

Tremors ran through John's body as soon as the dialing sequence started. He didn't regain consciousness. As more chevrons were keyed in, his body convulsed. The claws in his fingers snapped open, gouging the sides of the bed. His vital signs dropped precipitously. When the gate opened, his heart stopped. Dr. Beckett and his team immediately started CPR. Dr. Biro held the defibrillator paddles prepped with gel and ready. They had agreed to hold off shocking him until after the gate closed, to hopefully avoid the added trauma shocking him multiple times.

Teyla mentally echoed her own version of Dr. Beckett's often repeated heartfelt plea, "Come on John. Come on lad, stay with us."

On cue, John's heart restarted beating on its own as soon as the gate swished shut.

The End.


End file.
